Iron (wo)Man

I have been hitting the gym pretty faithfully lately. A little more faithfully than even my quiet time, unfortunately. Usually, I am there in the late morning or early afternoon, and there is a certain. . .shall we say type? of person that I frequently see. I've made comments on my facebook, as I trudge along the endless path of the treadmill...about the people working out in jeans. The older people, doing leg flexes with their toes on machines that the buffer (i.e. not ME) people lift the equivalent of small houses on. The couple in the matching t-shirts, she in a long denim skirt and he (again) in jeans. Anyway, my point is that, while I exercise next to these people, and wait my turn on various machines along with them, they do not pose much of a threat to me. That self-consciousness that can come with appearing in public for the sole purpose of jiggling your jiggles and enduring a lot of unappealing sweat...it is not as severe during these workouts. Today, I could not make it to the gym until later, right before 5. . . muscle rush hour. Now, that self-consciousness that I was talking about, that is not going to stop me from doing my routine of cardio plus weight training. OK, to be honest, it will stop me from doing the dreaded sit-ups on the 1/2 exercise ball in between ALL the machines...but just that. So, today, I got on the elliptical-like machine (that's not an elliptical) next to a guy with a need for speed, who was next to a girl who was running from every Twinkie in the world on a treadmill. The gym was filled with this whole different vibe. People who were already in shape. Working out. To be in better shape? To avoid rush hour traffic? For FUN?!?? And I noticed, I worked a little harder, faster, and challenged myself a little more, in the midst of all the....fitness.
It made me think of my spiritual fitness. This has been a conversation among some good friends lately. I took great pleasure (I must confess) in calling one of my most physically fit friends a spiritual fatty. At the same time, there was some real accountability going on there. She has stepped up her walk with God a few notches. I have definitely been challenged by some good friends lately, and in the past have stepped up my walk because of all of the spiritual fitness around me. It sure beats hanging out on the spiritual couch, munching on spiritual junk food...being so out of shape I can't make it through a prayer without losing my breath or focus. And I don't know what the spiritual equivalent of sit-ups on a 1/2 exercise ball would be...but I'm guessing it is similar to my life the past few months.

So long, farewell....

I will not miss this summer. It has been a hard summer of rebuilding and reuniting and re-other stuff...Jimmy came home. No matter what I expected, it was not what I expected. That's not to say that I am not as dedicated to this man as I was back in May. It IS to say that fixing broken things is hard. God is good, all the time. Even when we are struggling to get our marital bearings. Or our familial (bonus for that word) bearings. More on that later. Or our spiritual bearings. Turns out, for all the growth and greatness that God has blessed me with (HIS greatness, not my own...for those of you who think you know me too well...haha), for all of that, it turns out that I can still be pretty spiritually whiny sometimes. Just this week, I found myself thinking "Surely God would not bring me THIS far to just have things continue to feel like THIS." Well, why wouldn't he? Is that not an obvious example of how much I still need to give to him? To lean on him? Apparently there are still some dark corners (and bright and shiny obvious areas) of my life that haven't heard the latest message. It's not really about me. It's about HIM. It's not about how I want my marriage to be, what tone of voice I want my husband to talk to me in, what circumstance I would like to be different, or what lesson I think I've already learned WELL ENOUGH... Less of me. LESS. of me. Really? Are you sure? Haven't I "less-ed" enough yet?? Apparently not.
So, it has been a great summer in 158 ways. It has been a difficult summer in 398 ways. Difficult-ness beats greatness (for now), and I am ready for a break. The problem is...God has been moving. He is leading me places, connecting me to people, putting me in situations, that I would not have expected. And it is good. I mean, good to know that he is leading. Expecting. Testing. Waiting. Forgiving. Wiping my nose (spiritually). So I am ready to see what Fall brings. Less sweat. More peace. Deeper growth. More glory to him, less focus on me. And some brisk, cool breezes (as long as I'm making a list of wants...) would be nice too. So long summer..and whiny attitude...and dark corners of selfishness....hello, FALL...

If you had asked me

If you had asked me, 2 years and 10 months ago, where I'd be today, you might have received a variety of answers. As far away from here as possible (my situation, my location, my grief, any or all of these "here's" ). Over it. Healed and moved on. Ready for a new relationship or something. Actually, I doubt I would have said that, because in the midst of my marriage crashing down around me, healing and new possibilities were beyond my comprehension. The point is, if you had asked me any sort of question that contained the possibility of my marriage still being INTACT, I would have looked at you in dumbstruck silence.
Our ways are not God's ways. What seems unreachable or un-doable or just plain too hard and unreasonable for even a Christian to attempt, God can and will do. The thing is, as much as I'd like to be one of those Christians that goes marching into battle, boldly putting on the armor of God and singing hymns loudly as I go--that is not me. I did not get up every day and praise God for his presence and peace. I did not sing "Swing low, sweet chariot" with a bittersweet confidence in God's healing and redemptive powers. The fact is, that God had to use all his tricks to get me to this point.
He broke this journey down in to bite-sized pieces. He made sure there were a lot of rest stops along the way. He surrounded me with all the right people at just the right times. He looked at my shell-shocked self and started out slowly. Really, really, REALLY slowly. He protected me when I needed protection, he challenged me when I needed challenging. He didn't force me to stay on this path, he didn't stop leading me when I strayed off of this path. Three years ago, when my world was falling apart, God was ready to start putting it back together, piece by tiny piece. And he has continued to give me Peace by tiny Peace. And here we stand, this week. My husband is home. We are going about the business of setting up his life again, determining the rules and boundaries, taking the risks, sharing tears and laughter and prayers. I thought the past three years were the journey, but they were only the preparation. God has spent this time bringing me to the starting line and now I must run the race. I know there will be more pain before the healing is complete. I know there is risk of failure. I know there are rocks and hills and narrow paths ahead. I know that Satan wants my marriage (and all marriages) to fail, because marriage is a reflection of God and his relationship with the church. I know that I am helpless to do anything but seek God and bind Satan, to desire my marriage be an honor to God, to give up myself and my selfishness so God can be more.
If you had asked me, even 6 or 9 months ago, if I would be EXCITED about just now starting this journey, I would have said no. I wasn't yet excited, but I was willing and I wanted to be obedient, even though I did NOT feel like it. So, here we are, 5 days in, already seeking God more than I could have imagined. It's a good thing that these decisions and outcomes were not based on the answers you'd have received, if you'd have asked me.

Thinking and thinking and...yep, thinking.

During this long and sporadic break from writing...I have also been thinking. What is this blog about? Me, me, me?? Or something more significant? If you had asked me, back when I started writing, what it was about...I would have probably said something along the lines of where God was taking me, what he had been teaching me about forgiveness, marriage, faith, and also some cooking and family thrown in. I'm not sure I have reached that goal, but I am not ready to throw in the towel, either.
One of the coolest things I've seen happen is other women in my life have started blogs. I was reading my sister-in-law's blog, talking about what she's been learning about respecting her husband and Biblical womanhood...and I followed her blog over to a site that I have now marked as a favorite. In the first few seconds, I not only saw what Kristin had referred to for her marriage, but I saw an article that seemed to be written just for me and my marriage (and our struggles). And now, two hours later....I am sharing with you one of the cool things I saw on the site there. If you go to Kristin's blog above, she will direct you to a website. And on that site they are asking for bloggers to sign up by June 1, to receive a copy of a book on biblical womanhood. Then, you just write a review on each of the 9 chapters on your blog between June 1 and September 1. Kind of cool, huh?
Anyway, as I have spent the last 8 (I was almost going to say 6, where did the time go??) months getting settled in Kansas, I have thought about this blog. What purpose does it serve? Is it just a silly hobby, or will I truly allow it to reflect my voice and what God is doing in my life? I am voting for the second choice. I do want to reflect honestly and openly the greatness of God in my life. I can not describe the peace I have had here. As much as I love Missouri and my family and friends there, Kansas has been ripe with opportunities already. I will share more on this in the future, but for now, just know that I am where God wants me.
And as for Jimmy, that story continues as well. I have struggled to accurately express how or why I could still be here, waiting. But, to borrow from an article on the website I was just talking about: A man has been unfaithful and separates from his wife. He comes to town for his daughter's graduation. The daughter tells her dad that she's so glad he's there, that she knows her parents' marriage will be healed and restored. The dad says "It's not possible, I have killed this marriage and your mom and I don't feel anything for each other anymore." She responds by saying, "But your raised me in a Christian home, and we believe in a God who raises the dead. This marriage is nothing to him, he can do it."
And that sums it up for me. My blog is about my life. My life has been a lesson (usually accomplished in the most stubbornly resistant and difficult way possible) in learning what it means to truly have faith. Also, it's definitely an incomplete lesson, but I'll keep you posted as I go. (get it, POSTED?? oh yeah....the humor is definitely high class...)

What's in your purse?

The other night, in my communications class, we had to bring some items that represented "us." Kind of a collegiate-level show and tell. Our cohort is small, about 12 people, and it was interesting to me that two women included their pocket (purse-sized) dictionaries. One woman explained that she kept hers in her purse so she could refer to it to make sure she was using a word correctly as needed. The other woman explained that she kept hers in her purse so she could prove to other people (namely, her family) that they were using words incorrectly. I didn't think much about it at the time, other than a quick prayer of thanksgiving that I wasn't in the social circle of the woman who used her dictionary to correct others. Today I was thinking about the oddity of putting entire books in your purse. I am, in theory, a minimalist when it comes to purse packing. I thought to myself, if I was going to carry any book in my purse, it would probably be my Bible. The big question is, would I whip it out to check myself? Or would I use it to prove to someone else all the ways that they were wrong?